


Practical Solutions

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Chloe & Rush friendship, Phobias, platonic shower sharing, possible pre-romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6438910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their experiences with the blue aliens, Rush and Chloe both encounter a slight psychological problem with performing a basic everyday task – taking a shower. When Chloe suggests a practical, if a little unorthodox, solution, Rush is really not quite sure what to think. Still, anything is better than nothing when it comes to personal hygiene…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practical Solutions

**Practical Solutions**

"Ok..." Eli raises an eyebrow as he walks towards the control interface room to find Park, Brody and Volker all standing outside it, muttering in a conspiratorial huddle. 

"Something's got to be done..." he hears Park say, then they all realise his presence and turn to look at him, a little guiltily.

"Something's got to be done about what?" Eli presses. 

Volker, Brody and Park all look at each other before Volker gestures over his shoulder into the interface room. Eli peers past them and just sees Rush standing at one of the consoles, jabbing at buttons and making notes.

"What's he done now?" Eli asks. 

"More what he's _not_ done," Volker mutters.

"We're trying to work out the last time Rush took a shower," Brody says plainly. Volker gives him a look but he just shrugs. "What? There's no point in beating around the bush."

Eli looks at Rush again as he jabs at the screen, frowns at it and runs a hand through his hair, which is damp and stringy with grease. 

"So we were drawing straws as to who ought to tell him that pretty soon it's going to get unpleasant to work with him in the same room," Park explains. 

"Well, more unpleasant than usual," Volker adds. 

The science team all look at him expectantly, and Eli sighs. 

"No."

"He won't get mad at you," Park wheedles. "Well, he'll get significantly less mad at you than at any one of us."

Eli looks around but it’s quite clear that he has drawn the short straw by simple dint of being the last to turn up to the conversation, and he gives another heavy sigh, entering the console room with the distinct air of a man walking to the gallows. Park, Volker and Brody all watch him from the doorway. He’s half-expecting them to put their heads around the frame in height order like in cheesy cartoons.

“Hey Rush,” Eli begins in as casual and nonchalant a tone as he can manage, which is not very much. Rush deigns to glance up at him for a split second and in that moment Eli knows that he’s already suspicious, although he doesn’t say anything and continues his work. “So…”

He glances back at the rest of the team who give him an encouraging nod.

“So…” he says again.

“Eli, do you actually have anything useful to say or am I going to have to listen to you say ‘so’ for the next ten minutes before you work up the courage to say whatever it is that you know I'm not going to enjoy hearing?” Rush finally looks up and gives Eli his full attention. “Well?”

“I was just wondering how long you’d been at this?” Eli says. “Because I don’t think I’ve seen you move in the last day and a half. Have you eaten? Slept?” He pauses. “Showered?”

“Your concern for my welfare is touching, but unnecessary.”

Oh man, why him? Why now? Why can’t Rush just take a damn shower?

“However,” Rush begins again, looking back at the console and beginning to type, “don’t think I don’t know what you’re insinuating.”

“You do?” Eli probably shouldn’t sound quite so ecstatically hopeful at that statement but at least he’s been let off the hook.

“Indeed.” Rush steps away from the console and waves Eli over to it, and as he looks at the numbers and letters and symbols flashing across the screen, Eli knows that they really chose the wrong moment to goad Rush into taking a break and this is his revenge. “Since you and the rest of the team have decided you’d rather work without my presence for the foreseeable future, I leave this mess in your _incredibly_ capable hands.”

Eli groans. “Rush, I didn’t mean…”

But Rush is already gone, out of the room, past Volker, Brody and Park, and Eli rests his head against the console. He can’t leave it like this or systems will start shutting down all over the ship and soon enough Young will be storming in demanding to know what’s going on. Eli can’t exactly say that everything’s broken because they made Rush have a wash.

The rest of the team sidle in.

“Thanks, guys,” Eli mutters, his forehead still resting against the screen.

X

Rush stays staring at the shower cubicle doors for a very long time after he enters the room. He can do this. It’s just a shower, for God’s sake. It’s not even a particularly powerful one; it’s not as if he’s about to be drenched in a torrent from above. It can barely be called a shower. There’s nothing to be scared of, and the thoughts of his team aside, he really does need one for his own sake if not theirs.

He takes a deep breath and strips off quickly before he can second guess himself, diving into the cubicle and starting the misty spray. So far, so good. The quicker he can get clean, the quicker he can get out of here and not worry again for another few days – maybe a couple of weeks if he can stretch it.

The frosted glass is fogging up, little rivulets of condensation running down it, and Rush begins to feel the familiar panic rise in the back of his throat. He forces it down. It’s just a shower, on Destiny. But still. He’s wet and there’s glass on all sides, hemming him in, and he can’t breathe, he’s drowning again, he’s back there, cold blue eyes watching him from the other side of the tank, and he can’t get out, and…

He slams his whole body weight against the cubicle door which easily opens under the force, and he spills out onto the hard tile floor, gasping for breath on all fours.

It’s then that he notices the two pairs of feet in the doorway to the shower room.

X

Chloe has become used to seeing some very strange things out here in space, both on and off Destiny, but she’s pretty sure that nothing she’s seen so far could have prepared her for Nicholas Rush propelling himself out of a shower cubicle as if all the hounds of hell are after him.

For a long while, nothing is done or said, although she can tell that he’s noticed her and Matt in the doorway from the defeated little droop his head gives and the muted moan.

“Erm, Rush?” Matt begins tentatively. Chloe’s pretty sure that there’s nothing in his Air Force training for dealing with naked post-traumatic scientists. She turns to him, putting a hand on his chest to keep him from moving towards Rush.

“Let me handle this,” she says. Matt’s not exactly thrilled by the idea, but Chloe’s gaze is steady and unwavering. “I know what’s wrong. Just wait outside.”

“Are you…” he begins.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she pre-empts him, and reluctantly, he leaves the room.

Chloe grabs Rush’s towel from where it sits next to his pile of clothing and passes it to him, trying not to look. He swipes it out of her hands and wraps it around himself, but a moment later he’s back on all fours, eyes tight shut, breathing still heavy.

Slowly, carefully, like she’s trying to tame a spooked animal, Chloe crouches down in front of him as he finally starts to breathe evenly.

"It's not the water that’s the problem, is it?" she says quietly. "It's being trapped in there, in that small tank-like space, _with_ the water."

Rush nods and pushes his damp hair out of his eyes, and he gets to his feet on legs that shake a little, adjusting the towel more firmly round his hips. He's closed off, the mental drawbridge pulled up and the portcullis down, even more drawn into himself than he normally is due to the simple fact of having no clothes on. 

"It's ok," she says. "I know the feeling."

"Chloe, I'd quite like to get dressed now," Rush snaps. 

She's not going to get through to him. Before she could, in their different circumstances when they'd both woken from nightmares and found comfort and safety in each other's presence. He was open then, if only a little, but now he's so self-conscious that his body language is practically screaming at her to leave, so she goes to leave. 

"How do you do it?" he asks suddenly. "How do you stand it?"

Chloe wants to turn round, give him some kind of expression of reassurance that she doesn’t have, because he has no-one else to tell him everything’s going to be all right even if she knows it’s not.

But she knows he won't appreciate that. 

"Why do you think Matt's here with me?" she says. "I tell him we're saving water." She pauses. "I still can't do it on my own."

She leaves the room and leaves them in their stalemate. This phobia is something that they both suffer from, and neither of them has a ready solution for. Chloe has a workaround, but that won't exactly help Rush. 

"Are you ok?" Matt asks as she slips out to where he's waiting. 

"All things considered I'm really not the person you should be asking that, but yes, I'm all right. Give him a couple of minutes."

Less than a couple of minutes later, Rush exits the shower room fully dressed, pushing past them without a word, eyes set dead ahead, radiating embarrassment. 

Matt turns to her again. “What’s going on, Chloe?”

“Flashbacks,” she says, and she doesn’t need to say anything else. Matt knows exactly what she’s talking about and she knows he won’t mention it again. He doesn’t like to talk or even think about that particular adventure. There’s silence for a while, perhaps until they’re absolutely sure that Rush has gone, then Matt slides his arms around her waist.

“Shall we?” he asks, indicating the shower room with a grin, and Chloe smiles back, but her mind is far away, with Rush somewhere, wondering what, if anything, she can do to help him in the way he’s helped her through all the horrific nightmares… Just because he has been the strength she has relied on to get her through the ordeal thus far doesn’t mean that she can’t take that role herself when the tables are turned and he is the one in need of comfort in the face of the awful memories, ones that no-one else will understand.

X

_“Dr Rush, this is Chloe. I’ve found something you might be interested in.”_

They’re planet-side, searching for food and water to stock up with, and Rush picks up his radio from where it sits in the pile of fruit he’s gathering beside him.

“What is it?” he asks, expecting some kind of Ancient puzzle that she’s found. There are stone tablets scattered here and there, this is obviously the ruins of a long dead civilisation, what few structures there are overgrown and worn away to the annals of time.

_“I really think you ought to come and see for yourself.”_

His interest is piqued now, and as Chloe gives her position, he gets to his feet and casts a quick glance round at the rest of the away team. There are others far closer to her position, but the fact she’s called for him and not one of them makes him think that perhaps she wants to keep what she’s found a secret, and he’s the only one she can trust with such a thing. Certain that no-one will notice his absence for a little while, he makes his way towards her.

She’s crouched in the undergrowth and he almost misses her until she darts out a slim hand and waves him down beside her, pointing through the long grass.

“Look.”

It’s a lake. A vast, beautiful lake.

“It’s safe, I already tested it,” she said. “I just thought you might want to know before anyone else found it and started bottling it all up to take back to the purifier.”

She doesn’t need to say anything else. He knows exactly what she’s driving at. _I thought you might want to take a bath._

He nods his thanks, completely unable to say anything. Chloe is not only kind, she’s also eminently _practical_.

She just gives him a smile and leaves him alone. “I’ll try and stall anyone who comes along.”

“I’ll be quick.”

He’s as good as his word, wasting no time in pulling his clothes off and stepping into the shallows. The water is cold, but not as cold as he expected it to be. Cold is good. It's not like the mist in the showers or the water in the tanks. Cold, in this instance, is nice.

He wades in to waist depth and begins to scrub himself all over, combing through his hair to get the grease and scurf out of it. It feels so good to be clean again, but even as he’s drying off, Rush sighs. Not every planet they gate to is going to have a convenient watering hole like this. It’s a practical short term solution and he won’t have to deal with the rest of the science team’s sideways looks at him for a while, but this situation is only going to present itself again down the line. He needs a permanent solution, and he highly doubts that anyone on the ship is going to be willing to use Chloe’s particular coping mechanism with him.

X

Deep in the middle of the mental preparation that precedes venturing into one of Destiny’s shower cubicles and inevitably running out of it after less than thirty seconds, Rush hears another person enter the room and sit down on the low bench beside him.

“Still can’t shake it.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement, but he nods in response anyway, and glances sideways at Chloe. She’s staring straight ahead at the cubicles, chin on her fists and elbows on her knees.

“There’s got to be a practical solution,” she says. Rush snorts.

“You’ve got one,” he says. “It’s six foot two, blond and soldier-shaped.”

Chloe just gives a soft huff of laughter.

“He’s also planet-side for the next twelve hours, and doesn’t realise that he’s a solution and I can’t…” She gives a frustrated sigh. “I just feel so helpless. We’re already so helpless out here in space with no lifelines; there’s already so much I can’t do, and now I can’t even take a shower on my own.”

Her hair is limp and greasy, and she looks at the strands critically. Rush wants to tell her that it’s not a weakness, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s not her fault, but that would be rather hypocritical considering he’s thinking exactly the same things about himself.

“There’s a hell of a lot that you can do now that you couldn’t before,” he suggests instead. “Focus on that.” Chloe laughs.

“Yep. Good ol’ alien brain to the rescue.”

“It’s not just that, although I won’t deny that your newfound abilities are… enlightening.” There’s no denying that Chloe has changed since she’s been on the ship, alien knowledge aside she has grown as a person. They’re all having to change in their own ways, but Chloe seems to have grown the most, in Rush’s eyes at least. Maybe he just thinks that because their shared experience has brought them closer, to a new, unspoken level of understanding.

“Maybe…” Chloe breaks off with a self-deprecating smile and laugh. “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this. Six months ago I’d probably have died before suggesting it. Maybe we could go together?”

Rush just looks at her as if she’s grown a second head.

“Chloe, I’m pretty sure that any of the ladies would be happy to help you take a shower if you tell them you need help; Lieutenant Johansen, Lieutenant James, Dr Park…”

“That’s the point, though,” Chloe cuts in. “I don’t want to have to tell them I need help. I don’t want to have to go through the whole rigmarole of explaining it all. Why do you think I haven’t told Matt?”

“No-one will think any the less of you,” Rush says gently.

“I know that, subconsciously at least. I just don’t want to have to go through it all again. I don’t have to do that with you because you already know exactly what’s going on in my head every time I stand in that cubicle, because it goes through your head too. You understand it.”

Rush nods slowly. “I do.”

“And this solution helps both of us. Well, it might do. I think we can at least try it. If it doesn’t help, then at least we know that we’ve tested all the avenues.”

Rush gives another nod. A part of him is honoured that Chloe trusts him enough to suggest it, trusts him enough to be with her in such a vulnerable state, both physically and mentally. Perhaps it’s because he’ll be just as vulnerable as she is. All the same, the rest of him still can’t believe that she’s even thinking about it.

“Are you sure?”

Chloe nods. “I trust you. Not with everything. In fact, not with a lot of things. But with this, I do.”

They’ve seen each other open and raw and vulnerable before, in those first few days after the incident when they would wake shaking from the same dream. This is not a completely new experience, although it is the first time nudity has been involved.

Eventually, Rush nods.

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

There’s a pause for mutual courage gathering and then they begin to undress. It’s quick, functional, but it’s not awkward. They’ve gone way past awkward and since they’ve already established that they’re going to be naked in very close quarters, there’s no point in being shy or shamefaced or trying not to look. There’s nothing sexual or sensual in it. This is a practical solution to a problem, nothing more or less. With that in mind, it’s easier to keep his eyes on Chloe’s face and not any other pertinent parts of her anatomy.

“All right?” she asks. Rush nods and ducks into the cubicle, Chloe following him. It’s tight, but neither of them are large people and they should be able to work around each other.

“I dread to think what conclusions the rest of the crew would draw if they were to walk in,” Rush mutters.

“They’d probably think that they were hallucinating, with any luck. Or dreaming.”

“Possibly more like a nightmare.”

“At least we’d keep the rumour mill going for a few days,” Chloe points out.

“A few days? Please, Miss Armstrong, a week at least.”

The fear is still there, bubbling away at the back of his throat, but it’s manageable now, with Chloe there to ground him. They manoeuvre around for a better angle in the mist and Chloe stands on his foot by accident.

“Oops. Sorry.”

“No matter. It’s not the first time.”

Chloe laughs, combing through the tangles in her hair with her fingers. “Why, Dr Rush, are we uncovering your hitherto unknown about kinky side? What will the rest of the science team say?”

They’re sharing a shower, she can get away with saying pretty much anything and she knows it. Still, Rush just snorts, thinking about the occasions he got in the shower with Gloria because she was so sick and so exhausted and so desperate to feel clean.

“Hardly.”

No more is said and they each focus on getting washed and getting out of there as quickly as possible. There’s no real room to be scared anymore – literally.

“I’m done,” Chloe says presently.

“Aye.” Rush stops the mist and they emerge into the cold shower room. The process of getting dressed is as brisk and automated as the opposite was, and once they’re both decent, if still a little damp, Rush chances to speak again.

“Thank you.”

Chloe smiles. “You’re welcome. And thank you, too.”

It’s a practical solution for the both of them, even if unorthodox. Still, until their minds stop besieging them, a practical solution is what’s needed, and that is what they have.


End file.
